Fugu fish and Tokyo again (part1)

Okay, so I am going to try to catch up some ground here. I'm jumping all the way to about three weeks ago. November 12 was Shio-san's birthday, so that night we all went out together (we had a group of about 10 including other friends of hers) and had fugu(blowfish) for dinner. For those who don't know, fugu is somewhat famous because it contains a lethal amount of poison (paralyzes the muscles and you go from asphyxiation), and thusly, only licensed chefs are allowed to prepare the fish. This is considering a delicacy in Japan, and quite the birthday meal, so I was lucky to be able to attend and try some of the stuff. No, I didn't die, so that's a plus, but on the other hand, it wasn't some out of this world delcious food either. It had a distinctive flavor, but that flavor was weak (especially when raw). The fried fugu had more bone than flesh, so it was quite hard to eat. But it was definitely and experience (and almost $100 a plate, not one I'm going to repeat unless my host dad is footing the bill again). I brought Shio-san a little stuffed Wisconsin badger for her birthday, but then it typical fashion for her, despite it being HER birthday, she gives me this pot of pointsettia(she owns a flower shop), as well as this funky little knick knack that you can look through and see a little picture. She is incredibly nice, it's insane.
Fast forward one week and I find myself back in Tokyo, this time with my host family. My host dad was already in tokyo on business so I went with my host mom via the shinkansen (bullet train). Here's a good example of how my host family rolls: I had gotten a special student discount voucher from Nanzan University, and thought I could maybe use it and save her some money, but when I showed her it, she said something to the effect of 'Oh, well I wanted to ride the Green Car today' The green car is the equivalent of first class. Instead of three seats in a row, there are two, and there is more leg room, etc. But it is not worth TWICE the price of the unreserved regular car tickets. Needless to say, that student voucher was a moot point. ...I'm just not used to living the high life, it doesn't always compute with me. The actual ride was pretty spiffy, and the train got going pretty darn fast (I want to say 400+ km/h, but don't quote me on that). In any case, the scenery was clipping by, and close objects were pretty much a blurr. From Nagoya to Tokyo in 90 minutes without having to board a plane. Not too shabby. So once we got into Tokyo we met up with my host dad and grabbed some lunch near Ginza at a really, really fresh sushi place with professional sushi chefs. This was by far the best stuff I've had. Incredibly fresh, and expertly prepared, I don't know if better sushi is availbe. The toro (fatty tuna) pretty much melted in my mouth and was by far my favorite thing there. But we basically let the sushi chef pick out what he thought was good that day and ate what came to us. I also got to try a lighter, white miso soup(a Tokyo thing), as opposed to the normal tan-ish miso or the smack-you-over-the-face dark brown miso available in Nagoya. The creepiest thing I had to eat, though, was the shrimp that the sushi chef killed right in front of us and then threw it on top of the rice...tail sill twitching. So despite the fact that it was moving, I threw all but the tail into my mouth and had the freshest shrimp possible.The really unnerving part, though was that even after I had bitten off all the body (and muscle that could possibly sending the tail electric impulses), the tail still twitched a couple times on my plate. I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut this short. The next half of the Tokyo trip (involving karaoke, Indian curry, incorrect policeboxes and throwing up) will have to wait until the next post. Okay, the photos aren't uploading, so they'll have to wait, too.